Monday, March 30, 2015

Jake E. Lee (Ozzy, Badlands) - Never finalised interview

You want to tell me, you never heard the name Jake E. Lee? Well, shame on you. It's one of the guitar heroes, who managed to work his way up to the band of Ozzy Osbourne in the mid-1980s and than VIP band Badlands. Once he announced his return with a band Red Dragon Cartel and a show in Prague, I had to talk to him. However the whole interview didn't go as planned...

Barking Guitar Hero

His both albums with Ozzy Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin have important space in my collection and second mentioned, has an undeniable space in my personal top 10 albums from all time. Therefore I couldn't resist at the first place a short phone interview, in order to promote the show. Next to that, I knew, there would be an interest from Muzikus for a front cover interview. Therefore I arranged a personal interview through a local promoter legend Jiří Kubík, revised all I could through my literature, grabbed both original albums and went for the show. I even bought the Bark at the Moon album few days before the show, as I still had only the teenage copied version at home.

Friendly Guitar Hero

When I reached the venue, I ran straight towards the promoter and a tour manager, who took me after traditional half an hour waiting time to Jake. Said hi to other members of Red Dragon Cartel, was offered a drink and started recording. We started with some gear issues, which are always great interview opener, moved to his new band and finished with his original playing approach. Before I could even start with some more serious issues, not only the after effects of his "departure" from Ozzy, the tour manager asked me to move the interview after the show, as the band has to get ready for the show. Jake agreed and I went straight for the bar, to get a drink and take a spot for the show.

Drinking guitar hero

The show was great even though it was held in Exit Chmelnice club, which is situated on the edge of Prague and the quality of the show highly depends on the number of guests. New songs as Shout It Out or Deceived sounded surprisingly attractive already on the album, but the live environment always makes it even stronger. Secondly-mentioned piece with its opening riff showed what everybody came to see: Maestro's riffing style which gave birth to one of Ozzy's greatest hits, Bark at the Moon. Band made my day by also playing a Ultimate Sin song. Right away from the beginning of the show we could all see, that Jake is also having a good time. He's enjoying his time on the stage and this feeling has been supported by a bottomless glass of coke and whiskey. Star of the night was smiling until the end of the show and then kept us waiting, about an hour, for an after-show autograph. I realized right away, there will be no interview tonight, as the crowd was too huge. But I was even more assured when I saw Jake's condition.

He barely made it out of the door and started giving autographs with a cigarette in his mouth. After I got on the line, the cigarette burned in his mouth, until the half of the filter. I gave him my two albums and a grey ink pen, which I probably shouldn't have done, as he was grabbing it from both sides until he left giant ink marks on the booklet. When I saw it, I said f*ck it, and asked him to press it, to get at least a fingerprint. Soon after he did that, the band came out of the dressing room, where they packed their stuff in the meantime and quickly moved Jake to a tour bus.

Since then I'm trying to finalize this interview. Local promoter gave me a single contact on a tour manager, which didn't react since May 2014. I tried all contacts on their FB page starting from press contacts - multiple Frontiers Records contacts, though general management at 2 Plus Media, UK press contact and his booking agent..

Let's all sing Ozzy's piece: You're No Different

elio@frontiers.it and his collegues Mario and Serafinopeter@noblepr.co.uk and booking agent dandevita@tkoco.com2plus@2plus.us and Diana@2plus.usthanx goes to FB administrators of the bandI'll go try the new contact they've recently placed on the fb page - Lane Six Entertainment